Potato Proof

There is no such thing as "can't"

There are only excuses.

I find this is particularly true with urban gardening. Unless you live in an illegal apartment with no windows, you can garden. I offer my own proof:

 

Those right there are potato plants growing in reusable shopping bags. I had some baby potatoes from the grocery store that were sprouting in my cupboard; rather than throw them in the garbage, I decided to plant them.

They grew :)

Not only did they grow, they also produced potatoes which I ended up eating in the fall.

All of my gardening last year was actually done in containers. Potatoes, herbs, asparagus, tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce, you name it. You don't need to spend a lot either, as you can see above a little creativity can go a long way towards getting started. Friends of mine grew tomato plants out of the BOTTOM of their hanging baskets. You don't have to worry about staking them that way, and they don't take up any floor space :)

I will be trying to move my potatoes into the ground this year. We'll see how that goes.

I know of at least one blogger who is planning to write a whole series on urban gardening, which I am eagerly awaiting! I'll make sure to link to it when she puts it up :)

Has anyone done any creative gardening lately?

Leftover leftovers?

Okay, so it's really freaking cold outside, and I don't really want to go out there right now.

Which kinda sucks, because I need to pick up groceries soon.

I looked over my fridge, tossed the items that needed tossing (how did 4 month expired yogurt get missed in the last clean out?), and assessed what was left. Not much. A couple eggs, a splash of milk, some mouldy cheese and a container of spinach cheese dip from going out with a friend a couple days ago. On the counter was some bread crusts leftover from having some friends over for an english tea a little while back.

My fridge is not usually this barren. I blame the weather.

I have a reasonably stocked pantry, but I was feeling the need to use up what was in the fridge before tapping that. Well, tapping that too much anyway.

I trimmed the mould off the cheese and cut into small, meltable pieces (there was too little to shred). After cooking a pot of penne and draining it, I threw the cheese pieces to melt, and added the remaining spinach cheese dip. The result was a cheesy spinach pasta, with a little kick. For whatever reason the restaurant we got the spinach dip from does theirs with a tex-mex edge. If I find the pasta is too dry when I reheat it, I can throw some salsa in quite easily to fix that.

The bread crusts (about 1/2 a loaf's worth?) were torn up into little bite sized pieces and spread out in a baking dish. My last 3 eggs and splash of milk were whipped together with a few handfuls of homemade vanilla sugar and vanilla extract. I say handfuls, because I was too lazy to get a measuring cup out of the cupboard. 3 handfuls - That's about as precise-ish as I can get on this recipe. On top of the crust pieces I liberally sprinkled nutmeg and cinnamon, as well as a few handfuls of crushed walnuts and a handful of dark chocolate chips, before pouring the egg mixture over it. I pushed the bread down to make sure it all soaked up some egg mixture, covered the dish in tinfoil, and put it in the oven at 350 Fahrenheit for about 35 minutes.

Om nom nom.

I have some Devon cream in the fridge at work to put on that bad boy.

I now have breakfast and lunch for the rest of the week :)

Then I really have to go get groceries :s

Has anyone made anything interesting out of their leftovers lately?

Reduce Reuse Recycle

I know what you're thinking, and no, this isn't about cans and bottles. It's about money. I've been trying to employ the 3R's into my financial life as well as with items at home. Hopefully I can keep both of them out of the trash? Here's how it works:

Reduce - Your Expenses

Reuse - Your Expenses

Recycle - Your Expenses

Okay, so they all say the same thing, but it's actually two different types of expense I'm talking about. I'll explain.

Reducing expenses is fairly self explanitory, almost everyone reading this blog is trying to do the same thing. In my grandfathers words:

If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.

I like that saying; it's catchy and it gets the point across. If you want to keep more of what you bring in, you have to figure out how to spend less of it. Sometimes it's as easy as keeping track of where it's going, sometimes it requires painful cuts and changes in lifestyle and expectations. Mine required both: I needed to track where my money was going to see that I needed to adjust my lifestyle and expectations. I don't use any fancy accounting programs or online software, I use plain old Excel. Or on my home computer, Numbers. Pencil and paper works fantastic here too.

Reusing expenses is one that I've actually been doing a fair bit now that I think about it. The most recent example of this was this semester's university tuition. School is expensive, and I didn't have $2000 sitting around waiting to be used on courses and books until work reimbursed me in May. So, we got work to reimburse me as I was paying out of pocket, rather than at the end of the semester. My first expense was $250. When I got that money back I added a little more to it and paid $300. Then $400. Then $450. I snowballed the same money onto my university tuition until it was completely paid for with minimal pain. Same with my medical expenses; as I pay out the money and get reimbursed for it, the money will be put back in the medical envelope to be reused the next time I need medication.

I've done the same thing with a $25 microloan I made while I was in university. I had been reading about microloans and how they were giving a hand to people that the banks wouldn't lend to due to the size of the loan or not enough credit history. I signed up with Kiva, who seemed reasonably reputable, and donated $25 to a young woman in Tajikistan to start a business. When that money was paid back, I donated it again to a young woman in Ukraine. It will be paid back again soon, so I'll be able to lend it to someone else. It's like the charitable donation that keeps giving.

Recycling is easy; once something has outlived it's usefulness, turn it into something else! My last tuition expense reimbursement should be sitting in my account tomorrow. Rather than saying "Yay, free money!", it's going towards my internet set up costs and a big credit card payment. It's going to feel so good watching that sucker get knocked down another notch! The hard part here is avoiding the "Oh perfect! Now I have money and I can buy ________." or "Now I have money for Starbucks this week!"

No. I. Don't.

I have money that can be used towards my goals, not instant gratification. Isn't that what got me into trouble in the first place? Right, avoiding that. Onwards and Upwards.

A Couple Quick Hacks

Look around any personal finance site, and you will eventually find an article or blog post about frugal hacks. Basically, tricks to can do easily to save yourself money, or get more for your money. There are thousands of them. Here’s a couple of hacks that I use frequently:

At Home:

Out of body scrub and your feet resemble a reptile? Mix granulated sugar, salt, or rice into a squirt of your usual body wash. It works really well in a pinch (and is WAY cheaper than the sugar/salt scrubs you can buy. I’m looking at YOU Fresh Brown Sugar Polish). I wouldn’t suggest using it on your face though. Maybe it’s just me, but I found this to be way too harsh on my skin, and I broke out worse after trying it. It worked really well on my legs through.

While Travelling:

Do you feel like your intelligence is being insulted when you go through airport security and the price of bottled water jumps another $3? I know I do. That’s why I started carrying an empty water bottle though security. On the other side I go to Starbucks and ask the barista to fill it for me. I’ve never had a problem with this. One thing to consider, make sure the water in the country you’re in is safe to drink. I drank tap water in Prague once and was quite sick as a result. In Canada and the US however, it’s perfectly safe to drink. If you go to a fast food joint and they try to tell you their tap water isn’t safe to drink, remind them that the same tap water is being used to make their fountain drinks. TIP: Take the bottle out of your carry on and put it in the tray before putting it through the scanner, otherwise security will rip your bag apart looking for fluids. Or try one of those new collapsible bottles that are popping up everywhere.

At Starbucks

Most Starbucks hacks have to do with coffee, but this one is for the tea drinkers out there. When you order your tea, order the Venti (not a huge price difference from the Grande). The Venti price includes 2 tea bags rather than the standard 1 bag. Ask the barista to leave one of the tea bags out on the side when she’s making your tea. For the extra 20 cents or so you paid for the size upgrade, you now have a second cup of tea. I stash the extra bags in my desk at work. And seriously, use those bags more than once. There is a ton of tea in them, you can easily make 2 or 3 cups. Do that with both bags and you have 4-6 cups of tea for the price of 1.

What are some of your favourite hacks?